Celeste-ial
by minaviolet44
Summary: When Charlie died, she thought she was going to Heaven. Not being forced to care for reincarnated baby angels. Because there isn't enough Charlie-centric fiction in the world and her death was pointless.
1. I'm Dead

When Charlie dies, it's brutal, and painful, and oh my God, what is that man doing to her—it hurts so much—at least Sam and Dean will be alright—please, make it stop—

She's relieved when it finally stops. She knows what happens when you go to Heaven—she's met an angel, of course she does. Sam and Dean had told her about the time they'd died, and they had their own personal Heavens.

A little section of Paradise, all to herself, where she lived out the greatest hits of her life. Didn't seem all that fun to her. But right now the thought of it was bliss compared to what she'd just escaped from.

Maybe she'd meet the boys' friend, the first hacker genius they'd met—Ash, Dean had said his name was. They could hack all of Heaven together.

But when she can finally see, she isn't in a place she recognizes. For a second, she's worried—what if some of the more dickish angels intercepted her soul or something? Is she not gonna have her Heaven?

But she doesn't see any angels—she doesn't see _anyone._ She's in a room, and there is a door on each of the walls. The room itself isn't empty—there's…a flatscreen TV? And a recliner, and a small table in the center of the room with a glass vase holding a single sunflower.

Then she notices something else. Against the wall, there are four round white things. They look…sort of like eggs. Very large eggs. She stops that train of thought.

She notices a book on the table, that wasn't there a second ago.

Picking it up, she reads the title.

 _How to Raise a Baby Angel_ , by Carver Edlund, dedicated to Celeste Middleton, the new mother of angel-children.

WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK!?


	2. Why Me

Charlie figured that, since she was technically dead, she probably had all the time in the world. So she grabbed the book, sat on the recliner, and cracked it open, ready to start reading…

Only to find nothing but blank pages.

"Seriously?" She yelled exasperatedly at the sky. "Is this some sort of cosmic prank?!"

She looked back at the book, and gaped. Lettering had appeared on the blank pages of the book, spelling out only four words: _No, it is not._

She chucked the book across the room, hours of reading and watching _Harry Potter_ coming back to her. Never trust something if you can't see where it keeps its brain.

Then she paused. The book was really the only thing giving her any information on what was going on. She'd just have to be careful with it.

She held it with delicate hands, and placed it on the table rather than in her lap.

"Alright, so what are you?" She asked it. Better to be straightforward than avoid the topic. She wasn't the Winchesters, after all.

 _This one is a guide to helping you raise a new and improved race of angels._

…Right. Okay. That wasn't exactly what she had expected. And what was with the 'This one' thing? Samurai book?

"Why me?" She asked aloud.

 _You are Celeste. Their new Mother._

As if _that_ wasn't creepy and ominous as all Hell. She knew her real name would come to bite her in the ass. She loved her mother so, but did she _really_ need to give her daughter a name like _Celeste_?

"Who sent you? Why am I their new mother? What are the eggs?"

 _This one was created by God. You were chosen because of your strength of heart and love. The eggs are the angels you will raise._

Charlie wanted to scream. Then she remembered there was nobody else around, and actually did scream.

 _Are you in distress?_

"Yes, I'm in fucking distress! Why can't I just go to Heaven? I just want to be with my family again!"

The book gave no response to that, its pages staying blank white.

"Who even are these angels?! How do you expect a human to raise them?!" Charlie pulled at her hair, wishing just a little bit that she hadn't cut it—at least her long hair was easy to pull on when in stress.

 _The angels are the reincarnated forms of the four archangels._

What?

 _Michael has been reborn as Mikhail, Gabriel as Jibrail, Raphael as Israfil, and Lucifer as Helel. You will not be human forever, here._

Weren't those just the Arabic forms of the angels' names? She didn't think about that for too long, before her mind hit another block.

"I'm going to be raising baby Lucifer!?" Then she realized there was something else in that statement that was worrying. "What do you mean, not human!?"

She would lose her voice very quickly, here. Or she would've, were she not _dead_. And apparently, soon to be not human.

 _Yes. You will be the new angel Mother._

And that told her absolutely nothing. Charlie wished she had anything comforting—a _Game of Thrones_ DVD, a _Harry Potter_ book, hell, she would even take one of those crappy _Supernatural_ books.

Then the TV turned on.


	3. The Eggs Are Hatching

A remote appeared in Charlie's hand.

Sam and Dean are on the TV screen. Charlie watches as they chop wood and prepare to burn her body. She watches as Sam tries to apologize to her—she accepts his apology, if only because she knew he would do anything for Dean, and that he hadn't meant for her to die.

She watches as Dean blames Sam, and then proceeds to show just how far gone he is because of the mark. She facepalms.

She picks up the remote and turns the TV off. She asked for entertainment—this is just wrong. She doesn't want to be spying on the brothers' lives—not now. Not when she sees them act like that and can't do anything about it.

She sighs and turns to the book.

"When are the eggs going to hatch?" She asks it.

 _When you want them to._

"Can I just never have them hatch?"

 _Only if you don't ever want to leave this place._

Oi, the book was threatening her now? She thought it didn't have a personality! She resisted the urge to throw it again.

"Alright," she says. "Uhh…I pray to God that the angel eggs hatch. Or something."

 _You need only wish_ is all she sees on the blank pages of the book before she hears the loud sound of eggshells cracking.


	4. Mikhail Is Adorable

Charlie quickly gets up and walks over to the first of the four eggs. It's cracking, but whatever's inside seems to need some help to get out.

She knocks on the shell, very gently, and it cracks a bit more. Out of one of the holes pops a small hand—too big to be a baby's, but small enough to be a child's.

As the hand wiggles and the eggs cracks more, Charlie decides to speed this process up a bit. She pulls off the top part of the eggshell.

What greets her is an adorable toddler with messy dark hair and grey-blue eyes. On his back are three sets of bright white wings. Charlie can't help but squeal a little. Mikhail, she somehow knows, is _too cute_.

"Aww, aren't you the cutest thing," she coos. "C'mere, little guy," she says as she cradles him.

Then she realizes he's wet, covered in the fluids of whatever was in that egg. Just as she realizes this, one of the doors on the side of the room opens by itself. Inside, Charlie sees a bathroom.

She quicks walks in, finding a washing basin and towel, and thanks God that she took a babysitting job multiple times when she had to stay off the grid and couldn't make money through her mad hacking skills.

Once Mickey—her nickname for the kid—is washed up, she goes back to the first room she was in. She finds that next to the bathroom door, two more have appeared—one opens to a kitchen, and the other next to it actually reads **Bedroom** on it.

She walks into the kitchen, realizing that though she still isn't hungry, she does want to wat something. Did angel babies need food? She didn't think so, but…

The book did say this was a _new_ race of angels—maybe that meant they were closer to human?

Sitting Mickey on one of the four highchairs, she rummages around the cupboards for something a kid can eat. She finds applesauce.

Well, Dean loved apple pie and he _was_ Michael's vessel…It was worth a try.

She takes a spoonful of applesauce in the silver spoon and carefully feeds it to Michael.

"Here comes the train," she murmurs quietly in a singsong voice. She swears the kid actually gives her a look at that, and easily eats the food. He smiles at her then—the smile is small, but there—and makes a noise of contentment.

She feeds him the rest of the applesauce, then takes him back to The Room, as she's begun to call it.

She sits him on the floor, which is carpeted and therefore child-safe, and…

…Runs to the next egg as she notices it's also begun to hatch. She prays the next two take a while. She doesn't think she needs sleep or gets tired here, but there's no way she's going to spend an entire day taking care of four toddlers, it being her new job given by God or not.


	5. Helel is a Hell-baby

The egg yields a toddler that's just a little bit bigger than Mickey. The tot has a head of fluffy ginger hair and large olive-grey eyes. The three small sets of wings on its back are the same shade as its hair.

Charlie recognizes the child as Helel, and she can't help but find it hilarious that Lucifer's reincarnation is a _ginger_. Granted, so is she, and she's heard the gingers have no souls spiel a thousand times, but this is _Lucifer_.

Not anymore, but he was at some point.

She pushes that thought away—she'll never be able to take care of him if she keeps thinking of Satan when she sees him—and gives him the same treatment she gave Michael.

When she searches the cupboard for food to feed him, she finds three plastic cups—one is labelled mashed spinach, the other mashed carrot, and the final, mashed…onion?

Okay, ew.

But then again, Sam _had_ been Lucifer's true vessel. She supposed it made sense that Helel would be a stickler for 'rabbit food', to quote Dean.

She kind of misses them, Sam and Dean…Right, not heading down that trail of thought.

She tries to stick a spoonful of mashed carrots into Helel's mouth, but the baby turns its head and the food ends up smeared all over his cheek.

"Oi," Charlie grumbles. The kid smirks at her. She isn't hallucinating or anything—she's sure Helel is literally smirking at her. She tries to feed him again. And again.

Ten minutes later, Helel is sitting there staring at her, smirk still firmly in place, mashed carrot all over his face.

"Freakin' devil child," she groans, and the kid giggles. He _giggles_.

She wonders if he actually remembers everything and is just fucking with her because he can't undo God's baby-fication.

It would be like Lucifer, from what Sam has said.

Charlie gets up, grabs a towel, and wets it. She then goes over to Helel, and grabs his smug little face, holding it in place as she scrubs the carrot off. He squirms in her grip, pouting, but playtime is so over.

She gets out the mashed onion, and there's actually a slight expression of horror on the kid's face at the smell.

"That's right, little Hell-baby," Charlie says darkly. "You didn't eat the carrot, so onion for you it is. Maybe if you're good, I'll give you carrot next time."

He has a pleading look his face as she firmly stuffs the small spoonful of food in his mouth. She's nice enough to not give him too much at a time—she isn't _that_ mad.

He makes a face as he swallows it, then gives her puppy eyes. They're about as effective as Sam Winchester's. Damn it.

"Don't think I'll be doing this every time you make that face," Charlie warns as she sets down the mashed onion and switches to feeding him the mashed spinach instead.


	6. The Final Battle is Nigh

When Charlie's done feeding Helel, she carries him over to Mickey and sits them next to each other. Then she waited for the sparks to fly. She was a little disappointed when all they did was stare at each other curiously.

So maybe she had been secretly hoping for a Pokémon-style showdown. It wasn't like she hadn't spent a shitton of time around the _Winchesters_ , who had talked about Michael and Lucifer like they would have some sort of super-powered powwow if they so much as encountered each other.

So maybe she was exaggerating a little. She was bored.

"Come on, do something," she urged the toddlers. She was such a bad mother. Whose idea was it to give her this job again? Right, God.

The toddlers just looked at her with deadpan expressions. It seemed like both of them were looking at her like she was stupid…"Hey!"

Helel tilted his head at her slightly, then turned back to Mickey. And smacked him. Straight across the face.

Mickey looked at him with an expression of pure betrayal, as Hell—her new nickname for the kid—broke down into giggles. Charlie couldn't help but join him—the look on Mickey's face was just too funny.

Mickey huffed. He seemed to have had enough.

Then he smacked Hell back.

Wow, that sentence came out weird. Charlie broke down into laughter as Hell stared at Michael with an expression somewhere in between irritation and grudging approval. These kids were a riot—if angel babies were all this funny, she was definitely going to enjoy raising them.

Both Mickey and Hell looked at her laughing, and Charlie never noticed the small but proud smiles that appeared on their faces for just a second before they both crawled over to her.


	7. This Book is Dumb

Charlie hugs them both when they attempt to crawl into her lap. They're so cute, it's kind of hard not to. On the other hand, it's also kind of hard to hug babies with _wings_.

She wonders if they'll be able to fly on them when they're older. Wait…is she going to have to teach them?

Charlie quickly, but gently places the toddlers back on the floor, as they make small noises of protest. She snatches the talking book— _shudder_ —quickly off the recliner, then makes her way back to the toddlers. She sits down next to the eggs with crossed legs, which makes it easy for the toddlers to clutch onto her knees, but also for her to read the book.

"Hey, who's going to teach them to fly?" Charlie asks the book.

 _You will._ It replies. Will this thing ever be helpful on the first try?

"How the hell am I supposed to do that?" She demands with annoyance. Mickey pulls at her pants when her voice rises, and Hell looks at her with wide eyes.

"Sorry," she says quietly to them both. She looks back at the book. She blinks.

No, she's not seeing things. The blanks pages of the book have now been replaced with a guide on how bird mothers teach their babies to fly. Charlie really wishes this book was a person so she could smack it.

"The sarcasm is not appreciated," she snaps, and shuts the book, sighing. She hears a cracking sound.

Oh please, God, no. Not _now_. Two at a time was more than enough.

She slowly turns around. No such luck.

A wet, crinkly-faced, blonde baby with slicked back hair and large blue eyes stares at her and the other toddlers, surrounded by the remains of what used to be his eggshell.


	8. All I Have Now

Charlie carefully picks up the baby, as her mind supplies the name, Jibrail. Mickey and Hell look curiously at the child.

Hell makes grabby hands towards Jibrail. Jibrail stares at him, then reaches out a small hand of his own. Charlie holds them away.

"I just cleaned you, Helel, I'm not doing it again," she tells the kid, and he gives her a look of annoyance.

Charlie sticks out her tongue at him and goes to clean up Jibrail—she really needs to think up a nickname for him soon.

From the moment he tugs her hair so hard she resists the urge to screech, she knows this is going to be a nightmare child. Of course. Gabriel had been the Trickster. This baby had been Gabriel.

Charlie rummages in the cupboard for something to feed Jibrail and finds chocolate pudding. And vanilla pudding. She's tempted to take a cup of it for herself, because this is definitely comfort food. Jibrail's sweet tooth has good taste.

When she tries to feed him, he snatches the spoon from her hand and somehow manages to throw it at her face.

Then he snickers.

Charlie tries three times, ending up in the bathroom ten minutes later with a change of clothes and in a sour mood. Apparently though she had no need for bodily functions, she _could_ get dirty, as could the children, because she had no magic or grace or whatever to clean it up, and the toddlers didn't yet know how to use theirs.

At least she managed to successfully feed Jib, who is now sitting and babbling at his siblings, as Hell babbles back, though a bit slower than Jib, and Mickey calmly watches them both, his head slightly tilts.

Charlie wonders if baby language is a thing and they can actually understand each other. Or maybe it's just an angel baby thing.

She grabs the book.

"Take me to my Heaven. Let me see my family. Make someone else do this," Charlie is practically bagging at the end of what was supposed to be a commanding, orderly, voice.

 _I cannot_ , are the words that appears slowly on the book's pages.

"Please," she begs. She died horribly—couldn't she at least be happy in the afterlife? With her own Heaven full of Hermione and Princess Leia and—

"I don't want to do this!" She screams at the book, suddenly angry. She throws it across the room, like she should've done the moment it started talking back. She should have known. Anyone who became friends with the Winchesters was doomed to horrible luck.

The book hits the wall with a loud _THWACK_. It is then Charlie notices the dead silence in the room.

She turns to the children. They all stare at her with wide eyes—Jib's eyes are full of tears, and Hell's lower lip is wobbly. Even calm Mickey seems to be on the verge of—

They all start to wail. Charlie wants to leave them, to just be alone—but she can't.

They're children—they didn't do this, and it isn't their fault. Charlie hasn't really been acting herself since she, well, died, but she knows she wouldn't act like that in front of a baby. Death was traumatizing, but she needs to pull herself together. The way she did after the crash, and after the Leviathans, and after Black Charlie.

Jib and Hell and Mickey are all she has, now.


	9. Hungry, hungry, hippos—I mean, babies

The next baby to be born is Raphael. Or, as her mind insistently corrects, Israfil.

Charlie remembers Dean and Castiel describing Raphael's vessel as an intimidating African American dude—who spent his time half-dead in a wheelchair when Raphael wasn't in him.

This is why she's sort of surprised when she holds an African American _female_ toddler in her arms, with straight black hair once the egg goop has been washed out of it and large, dark eyes.

She's just as cute as the other babies. And Israfil is really a better name for a girl than a boy. Thank God she won't be forced to raise _four_ male children. Boys are alright, but girl power all the way, bitches!

"I'm going to call you Izzy," Charlie says to the little girl, who just stares at her in response.

She places the baby in its highchair and wonders what kind of food she'll like. And hopefully this one won't refuse to eat or throw the food back.

Suddenly, as she goes to the cupboard, Charlie feels a tug at her leg. She looks down.

Jib is looking up at her with wide baby blues. He opens and closes his mouth like a fish a few times, then looks confused.

"Whatcha want, Jib?" Charle says, as she bends down and picks him up, hoisting him on her hip.

He seems to have a lightbulb moment when she speaks. He waves his hands maniacally.

"Mama! Choco!"

…Did he just say his first words? Was his second word just a _request for food_? Charlie gapes at Jib, who looks inordinately proud of himself.

Back up. Did he just learn how to speak by _watching her speak_?

"God gave angel babies more advanced brains than human babies, that's for sure," Charlie mutters under her breath. Half-thought-out Doctor Who references float around in her mind.

"MAMA!" She hears another loud call from outside of the kitchen, and apparently Jib's lightbulb moment is contagious.

She looks back to the unfed Izzy, and contemplates which she should do first.

…Of course, attend to the shouting child. She sets Jib in the highchair next to Izzy to make sure he doesn't get into any trouble, then sets out into the Room.

The scene there is an extremely rumpled and messed up carpet and several indentations in the couch.

Hell and Mickey are rolling on the ground…wrestling? Oh come on, really?

And Hell is losing. Charlie tries to dry parallels between the babies play-fighting in front of her and the apocalypse. It's not the same, At all. Really.

She decides to put an end to this when Hell calls out, "Mama!" again.

She goes over to them and pulls them apart easily, then picks them up, balancing one in each arm.

"No fighting, get it?" She tells them sternly. Neither of them look at her. Time to pull out the big guns.

"I'm going to feed you two nothing but mashed onions if you fight in the next two days," she says, and they give her horrified looks.

"No!" Hell says loudly, grabbing onto her sleeve pleadingly. At the same time, Mickey whimpers softly.

That's when he says his first word.

"Apple."


	10. As They Grow

Charlie, over the next few days—or week, or month, she's not sure because she can't sense the passing of time here, and it seems she never really gets sleepy—learns to take care of four angelic toddlers. She gets closer to them, learns what they like, and they slowly get used to being raised by her.

Sometimes, though, she wonders if they actually remember their past lives.

She asks the book.

 _They have faint impressions, though they may fully remember when they become older._

She wonders what that will be like—actually meeting real-life Satan and the Trickster. Hopefully none of them will smite her on the spot since she _did_ take care of them.

They each have their own distinct personalities.

Mikhail, or Mickey, with his messy dark hair, intelligent grey-blue eyes, and soft white wings, is the responsible one. That is, he's usually the most well-behaved, and the least picky of the bunch.

The only time he causes trouble is if he's left alone with Hell for too long, or if Jib starts to mess with him. He likes apple-flavored foods, and generally anything…very fattening. Charlie would say she's her favorite, but the one time she left Doctor Who on the TV, he started to cry. So he's her second favorite.

Helel, or Hell, is ginger-haired and ginger-winged, with large soulful olive grey eyes that do _not_ belong on such a huge troublemaker. He's honestly worse than Jib—he seems to take every possible opportunity to get her attention, be it negative or positive, and the sky's the limit. It's hard to get mad at him, with the puppy eyes he's perfected to garner sympathy.

Charlie draws the line very quickly when he actually whacks at her when she interrupts one of his play-fights. There will be no second coming of Satan, not on her watch.

Jibrail, aka Jib, is blond, blue-eyed and golden-winged, just like the stereotypical images of cherubs she's seen in paintings. He's a real trickster, and has an endless stomach for anything sweet. The one time she attempts to feed him a vegetable, though, he refuses to even look at her for the next hour, and when he finally breaks, his eyes are filled with pure betrayal.

Instead of making her feel guilty the way it should've, Charlie just has to struggle to hold in her laughter.

Israfil "Izzy", blue-winged and the only girl of the group, as well as the only child that looks as if she's from a completely different race, is the sweetest child. Okay, no.

She's…sort of cold, really. She still hasn't spoken her first word, even though Jib and Hell are starting to form sentences, and Charlie a little worried about her, if she's honest. She isn't picky about her food, and simply follows her older brothers' actions without question.

Charlie tries to encourage Izzy by separating her from the boys occasionally and making her chose for herself what _she_ wants to do.

Charlie finds that the TV has literally every channel in existence on it, and that at some point, a laptop has appeared in the Room. This really _would_ be her Heaven, if she had her family. But she doesn't.

Right, going to avoid that train of thought.

There is one thing Charlie has decided she's had enough of.

That is, God's stupid house arrest on her. Yeah. She refuses to deal with that for any longer, and besides, the kids need more human interaction than just her.

She goes to the book, and demands they be let out, to go _somewhere_ , anywhere, it doesn't matter, as long as they can get out of the Room.

Charlie has no idea what's been going on with Sam and Dean, either, since she hasn't checked Winchester TV since she started taking care of the kids. This might be a way to get in touch with them.

Also, Charlie hasn't gotten any action. In a very, very long time. Maybe…okay, no, she's not that irresponsible. Seriously, where could she even find an angelic babysitter?

In any case, it's about time her charges learn the wonders of fast food, nature, and Disneyland.


	11. Finally Fun

Charlie stands in front of a small playground. It's not familiar to her—that is, she doesn't recognize it—but it looks like every other playground she's been to. There are the swing sets, over there in the corner, and there's the slide—this place has two, one of which looks like it's for the older kids, while the other is tiny. Just right for toddlers.

And of course there's the sandbox, where a group of children are carefully attempting to make a castle and failing very hard. The jungle gym has another group of children, all of whom appear to be racing each other to the top.

Charlie remembers that, as a kid, she wasn't really the most outdoorsy type of person. It wasn't that she hated exercise or anything—she just preferred her books and her fantasy to running around aimlessly. When she got older, of course, she discovered LARPing, which instantly resonated with her inner nerd, so it didn't really show anymore, but Charlie had once been an introvert.

She could just imagine the looks the Winchesters would give her if she told them that. She wasn't anything like that, not anymore, but it was because she had worked hard to become confident in herself as a person, to make up for what she had done to her family and live to the fullest in her parents' place.

Charlie looks at the child next to her. She didn't bring all of the little angels with her—she doubts she could handle four children in a playground, even one as small and with as few visitors as this one. So, she decided to take the one child she was sure she could trust—she brought Mickey.

As of now, he was the most responsible of his siblings, and the one that listened to her most often. She was sure he wouldn't get into too much trouble with the other kids in the playground.

She had consulted with the book about the issue of Mickey's wings, but it had waved off the issue—and she could se why, now. None of the parents sitting at the benches seemed to notice them—some had passed a cursory glance Mickey's way when she and him had entered the place, but otherwise paid them no notice.

Charlie kneels down in front of Mickey, staring into his wide grey-blue eyes. He looks very nervous—the only interaction he's had to date has been with his siblings, and this will be his first time interacting with other kids.

"It'll be fine," she tells him softly. "What do you want to play?"

He looks around for a few seconds indecisively. Finally, he whispers, "Swings?"

The swings are the one place where there seems to be no children, and Charlie bites back a sigh. They'll go slowly, she reminds herself. Mickey's not exactly the most talkative kid, and at first she thought it was just stoicism, but now she wondering if it's a more of shyness, or a lack of confidence. She hopes not.

She walks over, taking slow small steps to match with Mickey's—he refused to be carried around, saying he could walk by himself, which is something of a big thing for him, Charlie knows, because he was the first of his siblings to achieve that honor.

He attempts to get on the swing himself, and she quickly grabs him when he slips and catches him right before he falls.

"Careful there, little dude," she says, and Mickey scowls at her. It's surprisingly intimidating for a little boy, but Charlie just laughs. She lifts him onto the swing.

"High?" She asks. He nods. "High az you ca', Char'ie." She had made sure to teach all of the angel kids to not call her Mama, ever, but only Izzy and Mickey had actually listened. Izzy called her 'big sis' instead—Charlie hadn't told her to do that, so she had no idea where Izzy had gotten it from, but it was fairly funny, so she let her continue calling her it—and Mickey called her by name.

Since they were kids, though, they had problems with proper pronunciation just like human kids did, s it came out "Char'ie", instead.

Charlie pushes Mickey as hard as possible, grinning when he squeals in delight. His small white wings flap excitedly behind him, feathers ruffling in the breeze. They're too small for him to actually be able to fly yet, so this is probably the closest he can get to flight—which, come to think of it, is probably why he chose the swings.

She doesn't know how long she swings him for—it's an hour, maybe—because she loses track of time in laughter and cheerfulness and being able to just have fun after so long. She stops because her hands eventually tire of pushing him, and Mickey, like the good kid he is, insists she stop if she's tired and that he's had plenty of fun.

* * *

Mik'hail slowly makes his way over to the sandbox in the playground. There's only one kid in there right now, so he's okay with playing there. His mom—not Mom, he reminds himself, Charlie—is sitting on a nearby bench, wringing her hands. They look a bit red, and Mickey feels embarrassed at himself.

He had so much fun he forgot to remember that Mom could get tired too, even if he and his siblings never the swings had been great—he couldn't wait to learn to fly!

He could go so much higher, Mikhail thinks, as he turns his head to the clear blue sky above him. He wonders what his siblings are doing right now. Helel and Jibra'il are probably arguing again, and he knows he probably should've asked Mom to let him bring Israfil along. He feels bad for leaving her all alone with them.

He climbs into the sandbox, grimacing at the gritty texture of the sand. He can see Mom looking at him hopefully, and he knows she just wants him to have fun. So he will.

Mik'hail stares hard at the sand in front of him. What should he make? He saw kids earlier making a castle, but he wants to do something different, unique. A sword, maybe? Those are cool. Then he has an idea.

He has a Mom, but not a Dad. He doesn't know what his Dad looks like, but he knows what he would want him to look like. It's an image that's been in his head for a while, and he puts all his focus into making this as good as possible. He wants to make Mom proud.

* * *

Charlie is alarmed when she notices that Mickey's hands are—they're glowing! She hasn't seen any sign of the kids' angelic abilities returning, but that right there is basically proof that they are. She can already see parents gaping at the glowing child, and Charlie knows they won't be able to come back here anytime soon.

She's about to call out to him, tell him to stop, when she realizes just what he was doing with his angel mojo. The white light molds the sand around him, shaping it to his will, into the vague form of a person. Then it clears away, making very clear who Michael was sculpting, and Charlie's mind goes blank. The angel toddlers had none of their previous memories.

So why was she staring at a life-size, perfectly accurate sculpture of Dean Winchester?


End file.
